After a four-month search, SMU announced Jay Hartzell received unanimous approval from the board of trustees to be the university’s next president.
The official announcement came Jan. 7 at 10:50 a.m. in an email. Hartzell starts on June 1 and will be officially installed in fall.
Hartzell currently serves as the 30th president of The University of Texas at Austin. He’s been a member of UT Austin’s faculty since 2001 and previously served as the dean of the McCombs School of Business. Hartzell acknowledged his family’s excitement about the move from Longhorn to Mustang in a press conference held in McFarlin Auditorium.
“I’ve been working on Pony Up,” Hartzell joked. “June will come quickly, and Kara and I are really excited about this opportunity.”
David Miller, the chairman of SMU’s board of trustees, said the board never received a resume from Hartzell, rather the hiring committee sought him out.
“I will share with you that Jay didn’t apply for this job,” Miller said. “We sought him out and then very aggressively recruited him because of our very strong belief that he is the right person to direct and guide the institution to the next level.”
Hartzell’s appointment as the 11th president of SMU follows current president R. Gerald Turner’s Aug. 21 announcement that he would step down after 30 years in the position. Turner will continue to serve SMU as the president emeritus. Turner was not present at the press conference announcing Hartzell’s appointment. The Daily Campus contacted SMU’s news and communications department about Turner’s absence but received no reply.
“With Dr. Hartzell taking the reins, I am confident that SMU will continue building on a generation of remarkable success,” Turner said in a press release.
In his tenure as president, Turner has supported diversity efforts at SMU. In 2020, Turner attended and addressed students at a protest organized by SMU’s Black Student Athlete Committee, and he issued a statement supporting diversity efforts after the Supreme Court struck down affirmative action in 2023.
While students, like sophomore Camille Nguyen, remark upon Dr. Turner’s success at SMU, they are excited for new initiatives a new president may bring to campus.
“Although I am sad to see Dr. Turner leave, I am excited for the new change in leadership at SMU and am looking forward to seeing what the new president will bring to campus,” Nguyen said.
Students also noted Hartzell has a strong starting point, acknowledging the success President Turner brought to campus during his 30 year tenure.
“Dr. Turner did an amazing job and has established a foundation for our new president to continue to build off,” sophomore Sara Djuric said. “I am very excited to see what’s to come!”
Though both are located in large, metropolitan Texas cities, SMU and UT Austin’s campuses differ in size; in both acreage and student population. UT Austin’s student population sits at 51,913 according to data collected in Fall 2023. Meanwhile, SMU calculated a total enrollment of 12,116 in Fall 2024.
Additionally, SMU does not have a tradition of being politically outspoken. For example, SMU’s Palestinian Solidarity Committee organized a walkout for a ceasefire in the Israel-Hamas war. Organizers, per university guidelines, had to submit an event request 10 days prior to the protest date in order for it to be held. Last spring at UT Austin, campus protests over the war in Gaza led to Hartzell calling state police to arrest protesters. Though most of the protesters were not students, those who were enrolled at the university were offered academic probation. Hartzell faced criticism from faculty over the arrests but praise from Republicans.
Hartzell said he looks forward to getting to know students, faculty and staff and he hopes to connect with university traditions and embrace the school’s diverse student population.
“I want your advice,” he said. You may have ideas and say, ‘This is something that would be really fun,’ in a way that you get to know a different part of the student body.I also appreciate the full breadth and diversity of that student body. I’ve got to find ways to engage with all of it over time.”
Hartzell also hopes to carry on a tradition of university expansion through funding for academics and athletics, something that President Turner promoted with the launch of SMU Ignited in 2021. The multiyear, $1.5 billion campaign focuses on increasing scholarships, growing research in an effort to become a tier 1 research university and enhancing SMU athletics which culminated in the university’s move to the ACC. Hartzell’s familiar with this type of growth as he introduced UT Austin’s Change Starts Here in 2022. That 10-year strategic plan seeks to cement UT Austin as the world’s highest-impact public research university.
Hartzell has a bachelor of science degree from Trinity University and a Ph.D. from UT Austin. He is married to Kara Hartzell and they have two adult children. Kara Hartzell works as a licensed clinical social worker at her private practice in Austin.
Sydney Strollo attended the Jan. 7 press conference and contributed to the reporting of this story.
